00:00Advocates in New South Wales have largely welcomed this news.
00:05These laws are something that they have long been calling for, particularly when you consider
00:10that currently in New South Wales a renter can be evicted at any time, for any reason
00:15and sometimes for no reason at all.
00:18Now this is something that the Minns government wants to put an end to by introducing these
00:23laws that will now require landlords to meet one of several thresholds before they can
00:28evict a tenant.
00:30The government says that these thresholds are reasonable and common sense and include
00:34things like if the landlord is putting the property up for sale, if the landlord wants
00:38to move into the property themselves or if there are any major repairs or renovations
00:43that need to take place that can't be done whilst the tenant is living there.
00:48Now the landlord will have to provide evidence of meeting one of these thresholds before
00:53they can evict a tenant and they'll also have to give a longer notice period.
00:58For leases that are less than six months that notice period has been extended to 60 days
01:04and for leases that are longer than six months that notice period has now been extended to
01:09three months.
01:11Premier Chris Minns spoke a little earlier today and said that these laws he hopes will
01:15put an end to the exodus that we're seeing of young people leaving Sydney due to the
01:21rental environment being too challenging and too expensive.
01:26At the moment we're losing twice as many young people as we're gaining.
01:29If you drive around the streets of Sydney on a weekend you could see a hundred people
01:32waiting for an open house.
01:34Vacancy rates are at 1%.
01:36We've got a mess on our hands and it's a massive drag on the NSW economy because our best and
01:41brightest are up and leaving.
01:43So we want to change the rules to put some more fairness and a little bit of balance
01:48in our rental laws.
01:50Although housing advocates have largely welcomed this news some say they should have been introduced
01:54sooner with the NSW Greens housing spokesperson Jenny Leong arguing that the government's
02:00delay has cost nearly 40,000 people their homes.
02:05She mentioned anecdotes of where renters were too afraid to mention anything about faults
02:09in rental properties out of fear of being evicted.
02:13We also know that the Tenants Union of NSW has called this a historic moment and says
02:18that it brings NSW into line with other states and territories and modernises and dignifies
02:24the renting experience here in NSW.
02:28They also say that it's important as more people than ever before are renting and renting
02:32for longer too with the housing market becoming more expensive and increasingly more difficult
02:38to crack into.
02:40So housing advocates say they will be watching and working closely with the state government
02:44to ensure that this bill is effective when it's introduced later this year.
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